Comics Go to College

Egon was on the ball with this back in September, but I just got my copy of the New School's Spring Bulletin, so it came as news to me: Ariel Schrag's teaching a course!

Graphic Novel Workshop NWRW3521
13 session(s). Thurs, 8:00-9:50 PM, beg. January 27. $510.00
This course leads students stage by stage through the process of creating a short graphic novel. The emphasis is not on drawing but on the narrative. The course begins with analysis/critique of narrative comics, and then leads students in individual projects through the cumulative stages of outline, rough sketches, final penciling, lettering, inking, and editing. Mainly the course focuses on the "rough sketch" stage of the graphic novel, in which we discuss narrative point-of-view options, depicting content through page layout, narrative pacing and the "grammar" of comics, composition of the page and within panels, incorporating background into narrative, and symbolic vocabulary. The effects of final drawing/inking style on narrative is discossed. Student work is critiqued in class, and there are individual meetings with the instructor. We study works by Art Spiegelman, Daniel Clowes, Renee French, Chris Ware, David B., Joe Matt, Joe Sacco, Adrian Tomine, Scott McCloud, Chester Brown, Herge, Julie Doucet, and R. Crumb.

The bulletin includes a detail from what appears to be a comic Schrag's created to help explain how she tells stories. Should be a cool class!